When Pat Cummins had Australia’s Test captaincy fall into his lap two weeks before a home Ashes, he was “absolutely determined” that he wanted Steve Smith as his second in command. Knowing the toll that fast bowling takes, Cummins wanted an undistracted eye to help get things right with the team while he was otherwise engaged.
“It’s going to be a real collaborative approach,” he said at the time. “There will be times on the field where I’ll throw to Steve and you’ll see Steve move fielders around, maybe doing bowling changes, taking a bit more of an elevated vice-captaincy role.
“I made it pretty clear that if I was given the captaincy this is how I saw the team running and I tried to bring Steve along for that as well.”
A year and a half later, in the middle of an away Ashes, Cummins has been captaining the way he does: from the front, by example. Through a week of meltdowns about Jonny Bairstow’s dismissal at Lord’s, Cummins kept up a smile through crowd jeers and press conferences questioning his integrity. His answers were steadfast: he stood by his decision and would do the same again.
Coming to Leeds, the pressure was high. One of the most vocal and partisan crowds in England was ready to rumble, with Bairstow, the brooding Yorkshireman, at the centre of a national resentment, flanked by two more in Joe Root and Harry Brook at the heart of England’s batting. After Mark Wood blew away Australia, Cummins included, the match situation was difficult.
Cummins the bowler, rather than Cummins the captain, took it on. He started just right, finding edges from Brook and Ben Duckett on the first evening before stumps. The second morning was the key moment, Root and Bairstow resuming at three down, 195 behind. Where Root’s titanic record has sometimes found Australia an iceberg, he has hit clear water in this series: sometimes a change of captain is well-advised.
Root is England’s best, but also gets the best of Cummins. This reel has spooled before. Cummins walks to his mark, that bow-legged jaunt like he’s heading to the saloon. He turns and runs with knees high, turned more horse than rider.
He bowls an angle in at the stumps, hard contact with the pitch. Sometimes the ball moves in, sometimes away. Few players know which. Millimetres is all it takes, and this time it also takes the edge. Second ball of the day, Root is gone.
A little later, when England once again can’t stop swinging at the short ball, things are less measured. Cummins has a new role as a bouncer machine. This is where Smith comes in. He has already taken the slip catch from Brook and another from Bairstow, in the spot where he has spent much of his career. With fielders littered over the pitch like protest confetti, things are less conventional.
Now the fields fall to Smith, with occasional approval or shifting from Cummins. Filling in for part of the India tour earlier this year, Smith moved his field constantly during Australia’s win at Indore. At times he followed the ball, at times he used instinct to predict its next destination. He worked it superbly, either a step ahead of the play, or influencing it through the constraints he applied.
At Headingley, Smith has licence to do something similar. He tweaks the position of the boundary riders after each ball. When Moeen Ali hooks into a gap behind square, Smith himself runs all the way from the off side to fill that spot. He already has a fine leg on the fence, and moves another deep fielder in front of square, so he can take his spot at 45 degrees, two-thirds of the way back. Surely Moeen won’t play a shot to the same spot? He does.
Mark Wood comes, swings, departs. As for Stuart Broad, Smith believes that his top edges will go long and fine. He reduces it to two fielders behind square, making himself the finer. With the ball airborne for an age, Smith has time to sprint all the way around, remain undistracted by the square fielder coming the other way, and snare the catch while sliding along the boundary without touching. Two more for Smith, six wickets for Cummins: call it leadership cooperation.
When Ben Stokes finally makes an error in his onslaught, Smith has guessed that miscues against off spin will most likely go to long on. So of course he has placed himself there, bobbing up from the grass like a mushroom in season. He is everywhere the ball goes.
Five catches in an innings equals the Test record, a feat achieved 13 times, including once for Smith already: the first innings of the infamous Cape Town match of 2018. Headingley’s hometown occupants would like to remind him of that week for ever. For at least part of the day, though, as England end in deficit and Australia start extending the lead, they are strangely quiet.
